


Fair Recompense

by containsquinine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon-adjacent, Ficlet, M/M, mostly - Freeform, the hand's tourney, thoros isn't the only one who likes dangerous people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 17:12:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19010197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/containsquinine/pseuds/containsquinine
Summary: Thoros wins the melee. Beric finds him after.





	Fair Recompense

He wins the melee. It feels as good as it normally feels, taking their money, but it would feel better if he were drunker. 

Thoros is back in his tent, contemplating whether to try and get some of the filth off of him or to go straight to the whorehouse, blood, mud, and all. His boots are caked with mud, the hems of his robes soiled, and both sleeves are sodden with blood, turning his robe brown as they dry. The dry patches itch. He doubts the girls would mind, not with a bag full of gold straight from the tournament in his pocket. They may even have some spiced rum from the Summer Isles. 

He stares at himself in his cheap mirror as he upends the wineskin into his mouth. His distorted reflection sucks the last of the rum from his teeth. It’s cheap too, more fire than any flavor, but it's rum, so he’ll take it. He looks haggard in his threadbare red robes, sword belt strapped across his hips, armor-less. Armor-less but for the rum, armor-less but for the fire. Some of the leather of his belt is tacky with dried wildfire. There’s a small nick behind his left ear where he slipped while he was shaving his head for the tournament. One of these days, Thoros thinks he’ll go to light his sword and light himself instead. _The High Priest would love that._

“They say you’re a madman.” The voice that interrupts his thoughts is young, clear and arrogant. 

Thoros turns. Propped in the doorway to his tent is Beric Dondarrion. _Lord_ Beric Dondarrion. The light catches on the red of his hair, and briefly he is wreathed in flame. His armor is pristine, dents from the joust already hammered out of it, his cape of stars unsoiled where it streams behind him. Thoros blinks at him, briefly struck dumb. 

“Are you?” Beric asks, smirking. 

He shrugs. The young lord puts him on edge. Thoros doubts very much Beric is as placid as he pretends to be. Thoros remembers the shocked grin on Beric’s face when Thoros unhorsed him, sent him flying backwards into the dirt. Beric had sat up and eyed Thoros with something akin to hunger where he sat, still astride his mount. 

Beric enters the tent without waiting for an invitation and gets right in his space, close enough that Thoros worries he’ll manage to bloody Beric’s cape. 

“I watched you in the melee,” Beric says, staring directly at Thoros’s mouth. It’s unnerving. “You fight…” he trails off. 

Thoros laughs. “It’s not the pretty steps taught by a master-at-arms.” 

“No,” Beric agrees, and then he reaches for Thoros. Beric slides a hand against the pommel of his sword, lightly, not moving to unsheathe it, and Thoros doesn’t move at all. His heart is pounding in his throat, wildly, at it, as he...doesn’t move at all. Doesn’t even try to defend himself, despite the fact that he knows next to nothing about Beric. That smile comes back to him, again, caught on a loop. 

“How do you light your sword?” Beric breathes out. 

The question surprises him. Thoros knows the answer. Knows he’s supposed to talk about blood magic and the Lord of Light, the way of harnessing the eternal flame that burns in each of them, but the truth slips out of him before he can. 

“Wildfire,” he breathes back. He’s the worst priest in the world. 

Beric throws his head back and laughs, guttural and filthy. Thoros’s head spins. Beric should be far from this tent, with a maid on his lap and beer on his tongue. He shouldn’t be in Thoros’s tent with Thoros’s dried blood flaking onto his fancy armor, looking for all the world like he’s about to go to his knees. 

“You are mad,” Beric says approvingly. His hands are against Thoros’s belt, fingering the sap of wildfire there, slipping under the leather and pulling him closer. Every one of Thoros’s nerves alight. 

“Let me buy you a drink,” Thoros says, all thoughts of the whorehouse forgotten. 

“It seems fair recompense for my bruises,” Beric agrees, grinning at him under his lashes. 

Beric drags him from the tent, and Thoros can’t help but follow.

**Author's Note:**

> I am obsessed with the idea that the wildfire on Thoros's sword is a cheat, because he doesn't have the faith to perform the ritual to light it with his blood like Thoros and Beric do in the show initially. I'm not through with the books so I'm not sure if that is actually the reason or what, but regardless. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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